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Wanted! Curious Shoppers and Local Traders (MoCC phase 2)
In January 2013, phase 1 of the ‘Museum of Contemporary Commodities’ (MoCC) art/social science project took place at the University of Exeter: a trade justice thinkering day. This month, phase 2 – in London’s Finsbury Park – began to take shape. Here’s what we’re doing and how you can get involved, as published on Furtherfield’s website.
Job Opportunity – MoCC Project Producer and Coordinator, Furtherfield, London
Initial contract 120 hours May – July 2015. £1,800 (VAT inclusive)
View details
Wanted! Curious Shoppers and Local Traders
Explore the rapidly changing economies of global capitalism, and help to create a radical new artwork in Finsbury Park.
In July 2015 the Museum of Contemporary Commodities will transform Furtherfield Gallery into an interactive shop-museum, filled with locally sold products that are ranked by different categories and preferences.
We are inviting Finsbury Park residents (and online participants) to join a team of volunteer researchers and art makers and get involved in the process through a series of walkshops, workshops and digital-arty-social events, running April-July in the park and online.
Share your experiences of shopping and trading, and help us create an engaging and entertaining experience with sensor technology, sound design, digital interactions and live action, that makes visible some of the complex relationships at play between data surveillance, trade justice, and global/local commodity culture.
How to get involved in Finsbury Park and online
Out now! Fashion Revolution Day’s education packs & quiz
This year we’ve been involved in creating the content for Fashion Revolution Day’s education packs (including its quiz and trump card game). If you are teaching fashion ethics/geographies/activism on or around the second anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse on 24 April, they contain a variety of ways to creatively engage students in the controversial issues raised. Click the images for more.
Where did you get those jeans? Be Curious. Find Out. Do Something.
Last year, Ian became the Education lead for Fashion Revolution Day. He has been working with Nikki Mattei to produce FRD education materials for Primary and Secondary schools, Further Education colleges and Universities in time for the second anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse on 24 April. These will be published later this month but, as a taster, he has written a blog post on FRD’s approach to education on the European Year for Development’s website. Its starts:
In the summer of 2011, we asked people visiting the Eden Project in Cornwall, England to write postcards. The architecture of its biodomes, the placement of plants within them, and the signs and activities explaining their cultivation and use are designed to educate visitors about the plants from which many everyday things are made. We stopped passers-by to ask if they had anything on them that was made from the plants they’d seen. Typically, people would mention their clothes or shoes. So we asked them to imagine someone whose job it had been to pick their cotton or tap their rubber. What they would say to that person if they had the chance? We asked them to write this down on a postcard. Almost everyone wrote ‘thank you’ notes. It’s surprising how many people say that they’ve never thought about this before. But, for some, writing a postcard can be a tipping point, the beginning of a process in which curiosity leads to research, which leads to action. Click for more
Fashion Revolution Legoland
Fashion Revolution Day has coordinators in 62 countries worldwide. The 63rd, joining today, is #Legoland https://t.co/5nXQvpqTs4 @Fash_Rev
— followthethings.com (@followthethings) February 14, 2015
‘Love At First Bite – The Ad Doritos Don’t Want You to See’
‘That sound when you bite down on Doritos? That’s the sound of rainforests being “crunched” to make way for massive palm oil plantations in Southeast Asia. Workers, and even children, are trapped in modern slavery on the plantations. Forests and peatlands are burned to the ground, driving endangered species like orangutans to extinction and polluting the Earth’s atmosphere with gigatons of greenhouse gases — all to make palm oil. ‘
Sign the Sum of Us petition here.
Where presents come from…
Dear followthethings.com shopper
Christmas is the busiest time of year for global capitalism. It’s also the best time of year to ask ‘who made my stuff’? Or, better, ‘who made the stuff I’m going to buy for my friends and family’? And ‘who made the gifts they’re going to gove to me’? There’s lots to think about.
We have been putting together a Christmas ‘shopping’ list for over a decade and it’s full of fascinating information and thought-provoking stories with which to teach and learn about this time of year. Watch some classic Christmas movies. Read some shopping guides, supply chain news, and perspectives on the season from NGOs, artists and academics.
How to think critically about and with Christmas? We have some ideas
Festive feelings
Ian et al.
[last updated December 2025]
Our Christmas movies
A short to warm up your audience:
Tesco pulls Christmas cards reportedly made by ‘Chinese prison slaves’ (2019)
or
Xmas Unwrapped (2014)
Where’s this from? See our page in this film here.
Continue readingfollowthethings.com awards for 2014 (part 1)
Yes, it’s that time of the year. Our annual awards ceremony. Lego Daniel Radcliffe hosted the awards last year. This year he refused, so we’re doing it on the cheap. A huge thanks to everyone who contributed to our project this year, and to those who asked us to take part in their projects.
Watch out for more awards over the next week. We start with the…
Most liked followthethings.com page
1. The first ever pacemaker to speak for itself (student coursework, 51 facebook likes: new in 2014)
2=. Cries for help found in Primark clothes (a.k.a. ‘labelgate’) (activist stunt, 29 likes: new in 2014)
2=. Bananas!* (documentary film, 29 likes: added 2011)
4. Mardi Gras: Made in China (documentary film, 19 likes: added 2013)
5. McLibel (documentary film, 18 likes: added 2013)
The Global Network of DIY Tear Gas Masks :: How We Get To Next
Detective work: ethical jeans for under £50?
More student detective work from the Fashion Ethics Grand Challenge
Detective work: chasing Carry’s coat.
Another great example of Detective Work from last week’s Fashion Ethics Challenge in Exeter. All you need is a label to start with…
the back office 